Pope’s peace summit a turning point, even without peace

Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas joined Pope Francis at the Vatican. CLAUDIO PERI/EPA

ROME — Hours before he convened an unprecedented Vatican prayer service for peace in the Middle East, Pope Francis told a crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square that “a church that doesn’t have the capacity to surprise … is a dying church.”

By that standard, Francis showed that Catholicism on his watch is alive and kicking by delivering one of the greatest surprises of his papacy — a peace summit that’s likely to have no immediate impact whatsoever on the Middle East peace process, but that yet still managed to feel like a historic turning point.